


Silhouette

by orphan_account



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Female Friendship, Tobin loves soccer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 02:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21292460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: She feels eleven-years-old again: exhausted from giving everything to the game, but so in love with football she can hardly wait until she gets to do it all over.A short Tobin Heath character study.
Relationships: Shirley Cruz/Tobin Heath, Tobin Heath & Kelley O'Hara, Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 5
Kudos: 177





	Silhouette

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea and I couldn't let it go until I'd written it.
> 
> This is my first attempt at writing any of these people. I hope I did them believable justice! 
> 
> Obviously this is fiction. I did my best to follow an accurate timeline, but any mistakes are wholly my own. :)

Tobin is eight the first time she hears one of the parents call her a tomboy at soccer practice.

She is practicing Cruyff turns by the bleachers while waiting for the older kids to finish their cool down drills so she can run onto the pitch. Her ponytail is already coming loose, hair flying in her face as she loses control of the ball for the third time in a row.

"Use the inside of your foot,” her coach yells at her. "You're still using your toes too much and your touch is too heavy. Do it again - bring your left arm up a little more."

Tobin dribbles the ball into place and takes a few steps back in preparation.

Coach had caught her trying to imitate the move she had seen one of the men do in a match on TV. He told her about Johan Cruyff for whom the skill was named, and had found and given Tobin's parents a VHS with actual footage of Cruyff doing the move in a game before Tobin was even born. The picture was grainy, but Tobin had watched and re-watched those few minutes of play, determined to learn the way to move her feet and body the way Cruyff had moved his.

Tobin takes a deep breath as she jogs forward and brings her left arm up and back as if she's going to shoot, focuses on using the inside of her right foot to push the ball just a short touch behind her as her body turns a bit clumsily and she meets up with the ball to dribble in the opposite direction.

"Better, Tobin!" Coach calls. "Do you see how that feels different coming off your boot from the inside?"

"I feel it!" Tobin grins, tapping the ball between her feet as she turns back and forth with quick drag backs.

It's later that morning when Tobin is crushing her grape juice box in her fist in an effort to get the last sweet drops from the bottom that she hears them.

"I'm just saying that she plays so much rougher than the other girls." A high pitched voice travels down the sideline.

"She's definitely a bit of a tomboy, that's for sure,” another voice chimes in. "She'll likely grow out of it as she gets older; she's such a pretty little girl."

Tobin turns her head and squints at the small huddle of parents gathered on the bleachers. A few of the moms look away quickly, and Tobin drops her empty juice box into the designated trash bag before reaching down to tug at one of her slouching socks.

She doesn't know what a tomboy is, but if playing football like Johan Cruyff makes her one she decides she likes it.

//

Tobin is eleven when Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Michelle Akers, Brandi Chastain and the rest of the women's national team captivate the country at the World Cup.

She sets the family VCR to record every match they play, and skips a dentist appointment to watch the final. She watches, rewinds, and rewatches Brandi Chastain sliding on her knees with her jersey clutched in her fists for hours after the broadcast ends, and she loses track of how many times her mom yells at her for shooting PKs at a goal made out of upended couch cushions in the living room.

Her dad picks up a newspaper for her the next day, and Tobin carefully moves one of her favorite Thierry Henry posters so she can hang the full page spread photo of Brandi on the wall above her desk.

Every night before bed she prays that God will help her be good enough to play soccer for the national team when she gets older. She thanks Him for Coach Anderson who lets her run with the ball as much as she wants, and doesn’t get mad when she makes mistakes – he says it’s how she’ll get better.

She goes to sleep every night for two weeks with the World Cup final playing on the small TV at the foot of her bed, her soccer ball tucked under her arm like the stuffed bunny she’d slept with as a toddler.

It's the first time Tobin dreams of playing football like a woman.

//

Tobin is sixteen when Kelley tells her that she likes girls.

They're sitting in a post-training ice bath in a hotel tub that's really too small for both of them. Kelley's shivering legs are scissored with Tobin's, her eyes wide and searching.

Tobin feels a little dizzy, her fingers twitching where they're holding the hem of her t-shirt out of the freezing water. She doesn't know what it means for Kelly to be gay.

Well she knows what it means, obviously, she just doesn’t know what it  _ means. _

Tobin knows that some of the other girls on her various teams are into chicks, but Tobin isn’t close to any of them the way she is Kelley. She doesn’t do Bible studies with them after practice, or call them when she needs an accountability partner. Kelley’s faith is one of the things that Tobin admires about her almost as much as the way she plays soccer.

She feels like she’s choking on scripture and doctrinal anecdotes that she suddenly, despite years of what Sunday school had taught her, just knows are inappropriate and inadequate responses.

“You’re the first person I’ve told,” Kelley whispers against Tobin’s prolonged silence.

And  _ oh_. Tobin wonders how long Kelley has known, thinks about Kelley worrying that Tobin thinks she is _ wrong _ somehow.

"Really?" She asks, her toes flexing to poke into Kelley's thigh.

"You're my best friend, Tobs,” Kelley answers, and brushes at the few rogue tears on her freckled cheeks with her knuckles.

"Okay,” Tobin says dumbly, dropping her shirt to reach out and squeeze Kelley's shoulders.

"Okay,” Kelley says, cold fingers wrapping around Tobin’s bony wrists.

That night Tobin dreams of soccer balls with Kelley’s face on them dropping into fiery pits while she tries to save them, her legs shaking as she runs up and down a burning pitch in a twisted game of backwards whack-a-mole.

It takes a few weeks for Kelley’s disclosure to settle into her spirit. Tobin decides that God’s ways are higher than hers, and she figures if she has to get something wrong in life, erring on the side of loving people without judgment like Jesus is okay with her. If anything, Kelley coming out encourages Tobin to be a better, more Christ-like Christian and she thanks God for Kelley every time she prays.

//

Tobin is nineteen when a UNC tennis player kisses her at one of Ashlyn and Whitney’s parties.

It's her first real kiss and he tastes like stale beer and Doritos. She doesn't hate it, but she's not sure she likes it either. She pretends to  _ drible-da-vaca _ him on her way to get a cup of water, and spends the rest of the night playing keepy-uppy in the driveway to avoid him.

College is nothing like high school, and her sophomore year is already off to an epic start. Tobin thrives on the moments where she finds herself so out of her comfort zone that she’s actually in her element. There’s always something to do, someone to be with, and Tobin is living in a way she never thought possible.

The Tarheels play their way into postseason but lose to Notre Dame 3-2 in their round-of-16 game of the NCAA Tournament, and Tobin is so frustrated she actually can’t sleep after.

She spends most of the following holiday breaks in the backyard shooting ball after ball into the small practice nets her mom lets her leave up even when she’s in Chapel Hill. She convinces Jeff to play with her a few times, but she gets distracted with how easy it is to meg him and forgets to focus on the things Anson is on her about.

She wants to show him that she can be good at the type of defensive play and finishing he wants from her, but she can't help the way her feet work the ball as if they operate independently from her will sometimes.

She gets her nails done with Perry, and agrees to talk about anything but soccer for the few hours they spend walking around the mall looking at Christmas displays when they’re finished. Katie isn’t around as much this break but she does take Tobin last minute gift shopping, and she styles Tobin’s hair in soft curls before the Christmas Eve Cantata the family attends together.

Her aunt asks if she's interested in any boys at college while passing Tobin the green bean casserole at Christmas dinner, and tells her that it's okay to be a late bloomer when Tobin says no.

Tobin can't help but think that "late bloomer" is something that people call tomboys who don’t "grow out of it."

Kelley has a new girlfriend at Stanford, and she tucked a photo booth strip of pictures of them into the Christmas package she mails to Tobin. Tobin’s mom plucks it from the carpet where it falls from the folds of the new Arsenal scarf Kelley sends, saving it from the mess of wrapping paper around Tobin’s feet.

It isn’t until she goes to pin the photo to the cork board over her childhood dresser that Tobin realizes that the girls are kissing in one shot. Tobin wonders if her mom noticed, but she hadn’t said anything so Tobin doesn’t think on it long.

Instead of hanging the photo, Tobin slips it in her Bible to mark one of her favorite passages of scriptures - Psalm 139.

//

Tobin is twenty-three when the national team loses to Japan in Frankfurt.

She buries her silver medal under the dirty clothes in her luggage, unable to look at it without tears burning in the back of her throat. She still feels high from playing in her first World Cup but she hates to lose, and the whiplash of emotion she feels leaves her exhausted.

Abby visits her room when Tobin leaves their last team dinner in Germany early. She doesn’t stay long, just asks Tobin if she’s okay and tells her they’ll get the ‘W’ next time.

Tobin knows that Abby is just as upset as she is that they lost, and she feels impossibly young for a few minutes watching the older woman scrub a hand over her face.

“You played good, Heath,” Abby adds from the doorway as she prepares to make her way to her own room for the night. “Take tonight to let it feel bad. When you wake up tomorrow, be ready to use it to be better. Use it to fight for your spot in the Olympics. Got it?”

Tobin manages a half smile and nod in reply.

She wakes Kelley in the middle of the night, holding out her soccer ball as an offering. Kelley doesn’t say anything, just yawns and shrugs on a hoodie. She follows Tobin down the hall to the elevator that takes them to the gym the hotel has given the team unlimited access to.

They pass the ball back and forth for a few minutes before Kelley traps it between her bare feet.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks.

“I should have made that shot,” Tobin states matter-of-factly. “I’ve practiced my whole life for that moment, Kell. I should have made it.”

“You’re right,” Kelley says, tapping the ball back to her, “but you didn’t. Neither did Shannon. Carli wasn’t even close. All three of you should have made those penalties, but you didn’t.”

Tobin is glad that Kelley isn’t trying to make her feel better by telling her the loss isn’t at least partly her fault. She’s so thankful that her friend knows that she can live with the truth, and that she’ll do exactly what Abby told her to do, and what Coach Anderson always told her too – she’ll use it to be better.

For now Kelley lets her vent with her feet. They play a quiet game of 1-on-1 soccer tennis using a weight as a net. Kelley beats her 10-6. 

It takes almost a full hour of the ball at her feet for Tobin to feel like she'll be able to sleep.

“Bed?” Kelley begs around a sequence of back-to-back yawns.

“Yeah, okay,” Tobin agrees.

She dribbles the ball all the way back to their room.

//

Tobin celebrates her twenty-fifth birthday in Paris.

She extends her time abroad after the PSG season ends to rest and spend a few extra days with her new friends before saying goodbye. 

Lindsey goes out with a couple of the other girls, and Shirley comes by with pastries and a bottle of sweet French wine. Tobin indulges in both, knows she can afford to since she’s in the best physical shape of her life thanks to Benstiti’s unwavering insistence on nutrition and self-control.

They watch French TV that Tobin can’t understand, and when Shirley presses her mouth to Tobin’s for the first time she tastes like pain-au-chocolat and late Spring sunshine.

Tobin’s lips tingle with the memory of the kiss for days. She writes about it in her prayer journal on the flight to New York where she’ll stay with her sister in Brooklyn before joining the rest of the national team for camp and the Korea friendlies in June. 

It takes Shirley’s kiss for Tobin to realize for the first time that in every fantasy she’s ever had, the objects of her desires are always faceless, genderless silhouettes. Lean muscles and lithe bodies running up and down green fields or sandy beaches. Flashes of smooth skin glowing in the sun as it reflects off the ocean or the pitch. 

She’d taken the purity challenge with her youth group in high school. She hadn’t thought much of pledging to save herself for a future husband by not having sex before marriage. It didn’t feel like a challenge really, not when she spent all her time with other girls, her family, or the boys in the gym who treated her like any other dude. She's no longer committed to the idea of abstinence, but her free time is no less limited nor abundant in men, and she hasn't really cared. 

She had dated a guy, the son of one of her mom's old friends from church, for a few months when she moved back to Jersey to play for Sky Blue. They broke up when it became clear to both of them that he was more interested than she was.

Tobin has only ever focused on soccer, and on learning how to be the type of professional footballer that Anderson, and Anson, and Pia have all told her she can be. 

She supposes she has always assumed that someday she’ll meet someone when she’s ready to retire from full time football. She imagines that they'll like to travel, and that they won't mind her penchant for avant-garde art and photography

She’s never imagined that that someone she will meet could be another woman. The idea doesn't scare her, she's long since made peace with God's acceptance of all love, it just takes her by surprise.

Tobin has simply never considered that she _has never really_ _considered_ her own sexuality at all.

//

Tobin is two months shy of twenty-six when she comes out to her teammates in Portugal before the Algarve. 

Kelley already knows. Tobin told her back in June right after Shirley first kissed her. Kelley had snuck cookies into their hotel room at camp, and they stayed up talking late into the night like they'd done as U-20s. 

Her family knows too. Tobin told them after the Thorns won the inaugural NWSL Championship and all she wanted to do was call and wake Shirley to celebrate. 

Her parents both cried, but her mom said she had always thought it was a possibility. Her sisters told her they've always known, and Jeff said that he's proud of her. 

She came out to Cheney and ARod shortly after, then Harry and Alex. 

She doesn't know why, but it feels necessary for the whole team to know somehow, especially after Tobin has been away from them for so long. It feels important that she trusts them with this part of her that she is more inclined to keep quiet. 

Pinoe tells her that lots of people don't know that they're gay until they're older, reminds her that she didn't have a clue either until she went to college, and that it took Rachael even longer. 

Abby is like a proud older sister and offers a listening ear should Tobin ever need it.

HAO tells her that Tobin will always be her yin, and that she will love her forever. 

Kling jokes that there were plenty of girls in Chapel Hill who would have liked for Tobin to figure it out a hell of a lot sooner. 

Christen waits until the next morning to whisper that she's into women too, sliding Tobin a coffee when Tobin drops sleepily into the open seat beside her at breakfast. 

She sets personal bests on nearly every fitness test Dawn puts them through, even though she's still out of form, and it still feels weird to breathe through her nose.

//

Tobin is twenty-seven when she scores the game winning goal in a World Cup final.

The inside of her right foot sends the ball straight in goal, just under Kaihori’s reach, and she shreds her throat on the scream she can’t hold back as she runs toward Moe's outstretched arms. Her heart is beating so loud in her ears that she can hardly hear when seemingly all of Vancouver erupts in the stadium around her. 

Somewhere in the stands Shirley is watching with Tobin’s family, wearing one of Tobin’s jerseys, and Tobin feels absolutely invincible.

The days, weeks, and months that follow the World Cup are full and exhausting. 

They have a ticker tape parade in New York City, and Tobin flies high the whole day.

Jill tells them they're going to meet the President later this year, and Tobin is glad she voted for him the second time around. 

Tobin thinks she agrees to start a business with Kling, Pinoe, and Christen over dinner and too much red wine. 

She gets her 100th cap during a Victory Tour match against Shirley and Costa Rica in August, and she feels so lucky that the Lord gave her football.

Alex and Christen come out with her family to celebrate. Tobin wishes Shirley's coaching staff would have released her to travel separate from the rest of her team so she could join as well. Tobin understands why they wouldn't, but every missed moment together sucks. 

She doesn't get the chance to visit Paris again until October, squeezing the trip into the break before the team is scheduled to visit D.C. Shirley of course is warm and familiar and safe in all the ways that Tobin loves so much, but somehow something feels different. 

The night before she flies back to the U.S. Shirley tells her she's decided to sign with PSG again, even though they’ve talked about her trying to get into the NWSL. She apologizes for not talking to Tobin about it sooner, and Tobin is gracious enough to acknowledge that their year has been ridiculous. 

They talk about what Shirley staying in France means for them, and Tobin finds that it's everything they don't have to say that feels final.

They agree to stay up together until Tobin has to leave for the airport. Tobin makes scrambled eggs, and Shirley makes them tea. 

At some point they play a competitive round of keepy-uppy, and Tobin is so grateful for everything that Shirley has given her. She tells her as much, and Shirley let's Tobin win for the first time since 2013.

It's close to three in the morning when Tobin tells her that she thinks she could have feelings for Christen if she lets herself.

They're wrapped up together on Shirley's loveseat, and Tobin is using the soccer ball as a too-small ottoman. 

Shirley is upset, but tells her there have been women like that for her too. 

Tobin kisses Shirley goodbye standing beside a taxi outside Shirley's apartment. 

She can't help but believe that it's a fitting way to close the chapter that Paris wrote for her, even though it hurts. 

//

Tobin is almost thirty when it feels like God takes football from her. 

Not being able to play for such an extended period hurts worse than her back, and every time the trainers and doctors agree to lengthen her rehab the tension inside Tobin builds. 

She feels off kilter, like the world is upside down and she can't find her center. She juggles and plays keepy-uppy and dribbles the ball, more than she probably should, to try and calm her soul but it all feels wrong.

Over the years the pitch has become the sanctuary where she meets God the most. She finds herself in the grind. Running with the ball at her feet is how she gives praise. 

Tobin tries her best to stay grateful, to keep the blessings in her life in perspective. 

Yes, her back is a mess and she can't play soccer, but overall she is still healthy. 

She has her family and her friends. 

She has Christen.

As weeks turn into months, Tobin begins to worry that she doesn't really know who she is without football. 

Perry and her mom visit, and her mom brings a bag of some of Tobin's old belongings she found while doing a thorough Spring cleaning. Tobin knows her mom is trying to lift her spirits, but the sight of one of her youth trophies peeking from the bottom of the bag has the opposite effect. 

Christen offers to go through the items for her, a few days after her mom and Perry leave, and Tobin just shrugs. 

Aside from the trophy she expects, the bag is full of random tchotchkes that Tobin collected on team and family travels over the years. There are a few old birthday cards, a participation ribbon from the single tennis match she played in elementary school, and a plush bear holding a heart that says "Grandma loves me" on it. 

Tobin tells Christen she can pack everything in a box for her to take back to Portland, before Christen holds up one last item. 

"Even this?" She asks softly.

Tobin recognizes the book immediately, and reaches to take it from her girlfriend's outstretched hands.

"I got this for my eighteenth birthday," she says, brushing her thumb over the worn navy leather. "It was my first adult Bible. I used it all through college." 

She flips through the thin pages absently, pausing to read some of the sloppy notes she'd written in the margins of various passages. 

"You had it when we played for Pali Blues, too," Christen murmurs, running her fingers through Tobin's hair. "You used to bring it to practice." 

"You remember that?"

Christen hums and settles closer into Tobin's side. 

"I do," she answers simply. 

Tobin smiles. She wonders how it is that it took her so many years to really see Christen. She had always been there, always in the periphery of Tobin's life and in so many of Tobin's fondest memories. 

She's about to set the old Bible aside when she remembers. 

She sits up quickly, wincing a little when the movement pulls the healing muscles of her lower back, and opens the book towards the middle. 

There, just where she hopes it will be, is the photo booth strip of pictures that Kelley had sent her all those years ago. 

Christen leans forward, resting her cheek against Tobin's shoulder. "Oh my gosh, look at Kelley!" 

Tobin laughs and blinks back a few tears as she reads the verses the picture is meant to mark, the ones she knows by heart but needs more than ever right now.

"I love you," she whispers, turning to kiss the top of Christen's head. 

She knows who she is. Even if she never plays again, she will thank the Lord for giving her the gift of football for as long as she's had it.

And she will praise Him for giving her Christen. 

That alone will be enough.

//

Tobin is thirty-one when they win the World Cup  _ together. _

She tries to soak up every detail, to live in every moment so completely she won't ever forget how full of life and joy she feels.

She feels eleven-years-old again: exhausted from giving everything to the game, but so in love with football she can hardly wait until she gets to do it all over. 

She doesn't know if she has another four years in her. She hopes so, but she doesn't know. She thinks this while lying on her back, chin tilted toward the brilliant French sun, arms and legs star fished in an ocean of confetti. 

She hears Christen giggle on the ground beside her, and Tobin thinks her smile could break her face.

"I'm never getting up!" She yells, and Christen's giggles turn to full on laughter.

Her whole body feels tethered to the pitch, and it's so perfect Tobin thinks she could start crying all over again. 

"I love this game," she sighs, knowing no one else will hear her. 


End file.
